1. Field
The present invention relates to email, and more specifically to methods and devices for hiding email identifications outside of a configurable set of domains.
2. Description of the Related Art
Email is a ubiquitous method for transmitting electronic messages across a network, such as the Internet. Email is typically sent from sender at a client data processing system to a server computer. The server computer then sends the email to a recipient at another data processing system. The data processing system may be, for example, a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a mobile phone, or some other suitable type of device.
An email has two components. These components are a message header and a message body. The message header includes control information. This control information includes, for example, the sender's email address and one or more recipient addresses. The recipient addresses include one or more primary addresses. The control information also may include one or more carbon copy (CC) addresses, one or more blind carbon copy (BCC) addresses, or a combination of the two.
When email is sent, all email addresses in the list of carbon copy addresses as well as in the list of primary addresses are visible to all recipients of the email. Including a recipient's email address as a blind carbon copy prevents all other recipients from seeing that recipient's email address. Thus, when a sender wishes to avoid showing a particular recipient's email address to other recipients, the sender may designate that particular recipient's email address as a blind carbon copy. In this manner, a sender may selectively decide whether any given recipient knows who else received the email.